Comparing two brokers fairly takes more than a spread table

[Shadow Trader]

Spread tables on review sites list averages, often measured over a quiet period. A real comparison needs identical conditions.

A decent method uses two accounts at the same time, with the same strategy or the same set of manual trades, sending orders at the same moments. Differences in fill price, fill time and rejection rate then reflect the brokers, not the market.

Logging should cover spread at order time, requested versus filled price, time to fill, and any errors. A few hundred trades give a rough picture, a few thousand a reliable one.

Include difficult periods. Rollover, Asian hours and news windows reveal differences that a calm London morning hides.

Costs outside trading matter too: deposit and withdrawal fees, speed of payouts, swap rates, and conversion charges.

Platform stability also deserves tracking. Disconnections, freezes and server downtime during a month are part of the real cost.

Which measurements ended up mattering most when two brokers were compared head to head?